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Welcome to Armchair Archeology.
Join the archeology crew as we dig into the
history of excavation and scientific research at Hopewell Culture National
Historical Park, not from the trenches but from the comfort of our favorite
armchairs. On this episode we explore the earliest
archeologists of the Ohio River Valley.
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Where does the history of archeology in the park begin? The question's answer may
be more complicated than you expect. If you've been to the park's museum you'll
have noticed the display on Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis, a team that
produced the first book of the Smithsonian, including maps and descriptions of all
six park units. Yet before Squier and Davis, many early travelers, missionaries,
traders, and eventually settlers recorded descriptions and maps of earthworks now
within Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.
These records, along with the work of Squier and Davis, still prove useful to
archeologists today. Some of the earliest descriptions of earthworks were
made by the missionaries David Zeisberger and David Jones, pictured here,
in the pre-revolutionary war years of the 1770s. Neither recorded sites in the park, but
Jones famously mapped the Circleville Earthwork, the first published map of any
Hopewell earthwork, and did describe the Frankfort earthworks, which are quite
similar to the Seip Unit. Similarly, descriptions of the earthworks
near Cincinnati and Marietta were circulated in the 1780s and 1790s as
both of those early Ohio cities expanded at the cost of destruction of many of
the earthworks in these areas. It was a publication of this map of Marietta by
captain Jonathan Hart in 1787 that fueled the early American curiosity of the
earthworks and led to speculation of their origins.
Correspondences from this era mentioned many sites along the Scioto River,
undoubtedly referring to many of the earthworks now protected by the park.
Yet, it wouldn't be until the frontier of American settler colonialism across the Ohio River
that the more detailed information of these earthworks would be published.
This map of the Hopeton Earthworks was the first published map of
any earthwork in the park which appeared alongside a brief description in 1809 by
an author only identified by the letters JC who historians believe to be the
Reverend John Poage Campbell. This map matches the earlier unpublished map of
the site, pictured here, which sat on the property of Thomas Worthington, leading
to speculation Worthington might have been the map's original author. Along
with serving as one of Ohio's first senators and later the state's sixth
governor, Worthington was an accomplished surveyor. The most expansive early work
was Caleb Atwater's "Description of the Antiquities of Ohio," published in 1820.
Pictured here is his map of the stretch of the Paint Creek Valley. Atwater moved
from New England to practice law in Circleville where he ultimately became
postmaster. There he took to examining and surveying earthworks, publishing in his
essay maps and descriptions of 12 sites including what are now the Seip,
Spruce Hill and Hopewell Mound Group units of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.
This was the first systematic study of earthworks, yet rather than quench the
curiosity on the subject, it added fuel to the fire.
It was this fervor that set the stage for Squier and Davis's
"Ancient Monuments in the Mississippi Valley."
Davis was a trained physician who grew up in southern Ohio, living most of the
first half of his adult life near the earthworks of Ross County. Squier, on the
other hand, was an East Coast transplant, moving the Chillicothe in 1845 to take
up post as editor the Scioto Gazette. The pair, pictured here, were an unlikely
team. Davis was stoic and steady in his study of the nearby mounds and
earthworks, whereas Squier quickly and enthusiastically sought fame for his
work. Though their volume is a well-known achievement of early American
scholarship it almost didn't come to be. Fights over authorship, acknowledgments,
rejection from publishers, and unjust speculation on the part of Squier nearly
prevented its publication. Though occasionally inaccurate, the book
provides the only record for many sites, and is still used as a frequent point of
reference for the park's archeology team.
Of course, the biggest question on everybody's mind was, "Who built these
magnificent earthworks?" Were they built by American Indians or was it somebody
else? Perhaps one of the lost tribes of Israel or even some mysterious race of
"moundbuilders"? Unfortunately, Atwater, Squier and Davis,
and many others got it wrong, but they started the practice of scientific
archeology in the park during the process. That is, the careful collection
and analysis of material evidence to uncovering the truth about the ancient
history of American Indians in Ohio.
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